Monday - Friday, 6-9 a.m.

Host Tom Temin brings you the latest news affecting the federal community each weekday morning, featuring interviews with top government executives and contractors. Listen live from 6 to 9 a.m. or download archived interviews below.

The Federal Headlines is a daily compilation of the stories you hear discussed on Federal News Radio each day. It is designed to give FederalNewsRadio.com readers more information about the stories heard on the radio. In today's news, Defense Secretary Ash Carter hears pushback from senior military leaders on lifting the ban on transgender people serving in the military and a Senate panel urges the President to fill vacant inspector general posts.

A few agencies are about to test something called a "federal feedback button." The White House hopes it will let online agencies spot customer-service issues as soon as they happen. One official likened it to Yelp for the government. Reporter Emily Kopp has written about this, and joined Tom Temin on the Federal Drive with more.

Tony Scott has learned at least one thing in his nearly two months as the federal chief information officer: Starting initiatives means little unless you can get them to the finish line. Scott, a pilot, makes the analogy to flying a plane. Taking off might be the fun part, but you've got to land at some point. Federal News Radio's executive editor Jason Miller covered Scott's first speech as federal CIO. He joined Tom Temin on the Federal Drive with details on how Scott plans to pilot federal IT over the next two years.

December 2013 was a major milestone on DoD's path to audit-ready financial
statements. The Marine Corps became the first military service in history to get
a clean opinion on a major part of its general fund. But new information has
come to light since then, and on Monday, the DoD inspector general rescinded its
favorable audit opinion - saying it's no longer reliable. Congressman Mike
Conaway (R-Texas) is a member of the House Armed Service Committee and is focused intently
on DoD audit readiness over the last several years. He spoke with Federal News
Radio's Jared Serbu about the latest developments and what they mean for DoD's
broader audit goals.

The last round of base realignments and closures (BRAC) back in 2005 did some good. Many of the bases were repurposed and used to help the homeless. But BRAC had problems, too. As outlined in a new report from the Government Accountability Office, DoD and Housing and Urban Development don't track progress on base conversions very well. It's a concern as the Defense Department raises the urgency of its request for a new round of closures. Brian Lepore, director of Defense Capabilities and Management Issues at the GAO, joined Tom Temin on the Federal Drive with more on the problem.

The Government Publishing Office is on GitHub. The open source community portal already has more than 10,000 government users worldwide. They use the space to collaborate on software code, data and policy. GPO will share information about how content is stored and processed on its flagship Federal Digital System (FDsys). Lisa LaPlant is the FDsys lead program manager. She joined Tom Temin on the Federal Drive with more on the decision to form an open source community.

The White House has chosen a group of two dozen federal employees to offer advice on potential changes to the Senior Executive Service. They come from many facets of government. Their mission is to improve the way senior executives are recruited, hired, developed and retained. Will they be successful? John Palguta is the vice president for policy at the Partnership for Public Service. He joined Tom Temin on the Federal Drive to offer his take.

The Federal Headlines is a daily compilation of the stories you hear discussed on Federal News Radio each day. It is designed to give FederalNewsRadio.com readers more information about the stories heard on the radio. In today's news, Sen. Jon Tester introduces a bill to improve the mental health care of the National Guard and Reserve, and the National Archives and Records Administration has a new inspector general.

The chairman of the House Armed Services Committee says the defense reform legislation he'll introduce this week will include a focus on DoD's acquisition workforce and strengthening the place of program managers in the chain of command. Chairman Mac Thornberry (R-Texas) says Congress shouldn't try to fix the DoD procurement system all in one year, but it's time to get started. Federal News Radio DoD reporter Jared Serbu has the details.

Cybersecurity compliance standards are enough to have tech managers' heads spinning. You're monitoring your system, but are you sure you're looking for the right things? When a vulnerability or even an attack occurs, everyone's got to have the same understanding. Dorian Cougias is cofounder of the Unified Compliance Framework. On the Federal Drive with Tom Temin, he talked about the compliance understanding gap between agencies and contractors.

When the Obama administration released its 2016 budget request last month, it left some areas sort of blank. Case in point: The IT spending details for the Navy and Army, two of the biggest technology spenders in the government. Bloomberg Government analysts raided the IT dashboard this month to find some of the missing data. Bloomberg quantitative analyst Jesse Holler joined Tom Temin on the Federal Drive with a clearer picture of Army and Navy IT plans.

The Federal Headlines is a daily compilation of the stories you hear discussed on Federal News Radio each day. It is designed to give FederalNewsRadio.com readers more information about the stories heard on the radio. In today's news, the head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosive announces he's stepping down and a multiple launch rocket system battalion is heading to South Korea.

Pay cuts and pay raises are always top of mind for federal employees. Now, with the 2016 budget debate opening up, several bills are taking aim at those pay levels and benefits. And that's prompted a lot of comments from you at FederalNewsRadio.com. Web manager Julia Ziegler joined Tom Temin on the Federal Drive to relay what you and your colleagues are saying.

The idea of letting federal employees do government business on their personal mobile devices makes a lot of agencies nervous. The Defense Department, for years, has been one of the most nervous agencies of all. But that rigid rejection of BYOD might be loosening up just a bit. The Pentagon's planning its own test of BYOD a few months from now. Federal News Radio DoD Reporter Jared Serbu tells In Depth with Francis Rose about that test as part of this week's edition of Inside the Reporter's Notebook.

Few agencies have been busier than Customs and Border Protection. Its Global Entry program just enrolled its 2 millionth member. The agency is on the front lines of President Barack Obama's executive action on immigration. With summer approaching, CBP agents are on alert for another possible influx of illegal immigrants from South America. Overseeing day to day operations is the new deputy commissioner, Kevin McAleenan. He joined Tom Temin on the Federal Drive with more on his tenure.

The Defense Department has to look past the current budget struggles and try to see the long-term future. Paul Scharre is the director of the 20YY Warfare Initiative at the Center for a New American Security. A former Army Ranger and Pentagon expert on unmanned systems, he's done a lot of thinking about long term military affairs. He joined the Federal Drive with Tom Temin with a look beyond fiscal 2016.

The government has started releasing comprehensive indexes of data showing how agencies operate and conduct oversight. That's in response to a Freedom of Information Act request from the Sunlight Foundation. It's been more than a year in the making, and most of the data has never been publicly identified before. Matt Rumsey, the director of the Advisory Committee on Transparency at the Sunlight Foundation, joined Tom Temin on the Federal Drive with more on just what's in those indexes.

The Federal Headlines is a daily compilation of the stories you hear discussed on Federal News Radio each day. It is designed to give FederalNewsRadio.com readers more information about the stories heard on the radio. In today's news, a former Facebook exec takes a big tech role at the White House, a new employee-of-the-month-type awards program is launched to honor feds and a new dashboard is launched to track traffic on agency websites.

House lawmakers and Veterans Affairs' IT officials continue to spar over the data security of millions of veterans. In the latest episode, VA Committee lawmakers say the agency suffered another nation state cyber attack. But IT officials say they have seen no evidence of such an attack. Federal News Radio's Executive editor Jason Miller joined the Federal Drive with Tom Temin with details on this ongoing cybersecurity drama.